After the discovery of de Gama, the busy hum of industry began to cease in these once populous emporiums. When Shylock drew up his bloody bond, the trade of the Indies had set around the cape. While commerce was suspended and industry prostrated by wars and civil dissensions, Holland bore off the prize. The devastating armies of Alva threw the Indian trade into the strong hands of Elizabeth. England now began to lay carefully the foundation of her empire. The policy she now adopted, whether through instinct or forethought, was one which looked beyond the temporary advantages of position and possession. She attempted to make these advantages permanent by the conquest of the territory from whence all these bounties seemed perennially to flow. The British Empire in India, in its extent, power, wealth, and future possibilities, stands an enduring monument of the courage, energy, and wisdom of the British people. Whether actual possession has secured the reversionary benefit, time alone can show. That wealth, power, and dominion follow oriental traffic, is now patent to the world. It is no longer the object of secret diplomatic intrigue; it has become an open question, to be solved by the general competition of commercial nations. In the pursuit of this object, the leader in the Pansclavonic movement is pushing her outposts past India to the wall of China. The United States, conscious of her natural advantage, is awakening to the importance of a systematic policy. The French Emperor seems at present, by the aid of the Suez Canal, likely to appropriate the lion’s share. While American commerce is disappearing from the seas—fifty per cent. of her exports and imports being carried in foreign ships—the flag of France may be seen by the side of England in every sea. The hereditary policy and commercial instinct of the British may prove to be more than a match for the astuteness of one man. Who will ultimately bear off the prize, is a question admitting three possible solutions. Russia, as has been said, rapidly extending her frontier eastward, stretches out her hand to grasp the trade of the East. The Suez and Darien Canals—the one an unsolved problem, the other an accomplished fact—represent the two other contestants. One of the most constant objects of war and diplomacy has been for the possession of the highway through Egypt for the trade of the East.